Well, my time on clearing Special Stage 2 is holding up quite a bit better. Monday evening I managed to get the #6 spot on the leaderboard with a time of 2:27:83. The score was still there, albeit having dropped to around #27ish, Thursday evening. I then managed to slightly improve my time to 2:24:91, which is as of this evening at #22. That’s five days on the Special Stage 2 leaderboard.

I guess either the other players are having even more trouble with Special Stage 2 than I, or there simply aren’t as many people trying to get on the leaderboard this time around.

I don’t think I’m going to improve my time much more than 2:24:91, certainly not without figuring out a way to effectively use the Mirror Buster against Punk. It’s his weakness, but I have a really tough time trying to hit him with it. The only way to use it offensively is to reflect the enemy’s shots, and I haven’t figured out Punk’s pattern well enough to do it reliably. It takes me significantly longer to beat him with it than it does just using the Mega Buster on him, since at least with that I can hit him rapidly.

Also, it takes me about 1:40:00 to get to Punk’s room, which is about the same as the #1 score on the leaderboard to clear the stage entirely, so there’s clearly room for improvement elsewhere too. I have an idea what parts I need to speed up in (since they’re the ones where I’m not constantly moving forward), but it’s really hard to keep moving without getting hit and losing even more time from getting pushed back.